WEBVTT - Nancy Pelosi: Part 1 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:10.520 and Adamie Studios. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.760 There is an infinite amount of subjects I'd like to 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.600 discuss with Speaker of the House Pelosi, but you know 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.920 the rules of River Cafe Table four. We only discuss food, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:28.000 memories and how food fits into our lives, family, work, 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:37.879 and values. Nancy Pelosi and I share the same aspirations 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:43.600 and concerns inequality the environment. The difference is that I 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.519 wake up every day worrying about the world, and she 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:53.480 goes to work every day to change it. In an hour, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.200 fifty guests will be arriving for dinner in our home 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.280 to celebrate this awesome woman. While we are talking, River 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:06.480 Cafe chefs are cooking risotto ammaroni, poaching languestine, roasting pumpkin, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.360 and because Speaker Pelosi loves chocolate, We're going to have 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.959 two chocolate desserts, a bit of chocolate sorbet and a 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:16.280 rich chocolate cake. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.000 I'm very happy to read the recipe for chocolate sorbet, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.080 one of my favorite basic foods. In order to achieve 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.759 this work of art, you take seven hundred and fifty 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.920 milli liters of water, two hundred and fifty grams of 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.000 castor sugar, one hundred and fifty grams of cocoa powder, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.280 one hundred milli liters of recchio romagna. Gently boil the 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.800 water and sugar together to this light syrup. Add the 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:57.600 cocoa powder, quit gently stirring for fifteen to twenty minutes 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:03.480 until the cocoa powder is completely He dissolved strain, cool 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.480 and add the brandy. Put the mixture into an ice 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.919 cream maker and churn until frozen or freeze and flat 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:12.800 freezer trays. 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:21.920 Thank you. Before we go into food and values, and 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.400 food and family and food and memories, tell me about 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:26.520 your love for chocolate. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.560 My earliest memories are about loving chocolate. I remember once 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.720 when I was a very little girl, my big brother, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.000 who was a teenager. My parents said, you can have 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.920 the car if you bring Nancy home some ice cream. First, 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.920 he brought vanilla ice cream home. I put it under 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:50.600 the bed, never ate it because it wasn't chocolate. Why 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.440 would he bring me vanilla ice cream? But I've always 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.360 loved it, and as time has gone by, I've loved 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.880 it darker and darker and darker. 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.480 Yeah, what about ice cream? Because I did read that 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.160 you have ice cream for breakfast or is that an 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:07.840 urban myth. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.880 No, it's not an urban myth. It's convenient, it's right there, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.760 it has long shelf life. I don't have to worry 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.320 about it. It's right there, and but I have it 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.560 for breakfast. It's a great way to start the day. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.960 I don't have it every day, but I have it often. 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.360 And when I was younger, I used to have it 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.800 before I went to sleep, a pint device chocolate ice cream. 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:37.000 But as time has gone by, the later the chocolate, 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:38.040 the less sleep I have. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.600 Yah, you find the caffeine and the chocolate. So as 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.040 a child, so you ate chocolate. Did your mother know 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.080 that you were having a pint of ice cream before 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.040 you went to sleep? And that was fine? 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.600 That was not sual. We didn't have sodas or soft 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.800 drinks or anything in our home like that. Everything was fresh, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.360 except we had chocolate ice cream. 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.040 I love ice cream. When I go to the River Cafe, 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.240 my restaurant, or go to any restaurant, the dessert I 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:06.680 go for is always ice cream. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.680 Well, people say to me, you're going to some of 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.120 the fanciest restaurants in the world and you're ordering chocolate 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.520 ice cream for dessert. Don't you think you should have 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.520 something more sophisticated. 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.120 It's delicious. I think it's the way to end a meal. 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.160 Should we go back then to your mother and your 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.360 older brother. How many of you were there in your family? 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.000 Well, I'm talking about my oldest brother. At the time, 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.240 there were seven children, six boys, one girl. I was 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.279 the youngest, and I'm talking about my brother who was 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.760 like eleven years older than I was. My oldest brother. 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.320 When we talked about if you want to have the car, 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.480 you have to get ice cream for Nancy first. 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.680 So your parents had six boys and then they had you. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:52.839 One of them died when he was young. So I 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.600 was really raised with five five boys. 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.200 Yeah, and the Della Sandra household of six children. How 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:02.440 is the food? Who cooked? 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.400 The cook cooked my mother? May she rest in peace, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.520 bless her heart. She had a cook and what was 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:11.400 what was it like? 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.440 Well? It was very. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.520 Italian, but it was also very fresh and delicious. Sin 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.960 of the rest, I mean the cook would come in 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:22.560 the morning and make breakfast in. 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:23.720 That What would that be? 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.520 It could be anything you want. It could have eggs 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.400 or you could have oatmeal. There were some standard things 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.120 sometimes that would even drink coffee at an early age, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.000 like eleven or twelve, And. 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:38.880 Would you all sit down to breakfast, So that would 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.680 be if six or seven children and two parents, was 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.040 breakfast and meal that you all shared. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.320 Sort of dinner was what we shared. Now. My father, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.000 my whole life, My father was the mayor of Baltimore 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.320 from when I was in first grade when I went 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.640 away to college my freshman year of college, he was 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.599 still the mayor of Baltimore. So our routine was he 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.760 would come home and in those days a long time ago, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.239 he would go out to make all of his speeches 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.679 in the evening in black tie. Everything was very formal. 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.160 So he would come home from work, we would have 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.719 our family dinner together early. What time would that be 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.280 like five point thirty, Yeah, because he'd have to then 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.640 go on the campaign trail or just the civic engagements. 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.200 So that was the time that we were together. And 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.039 then of course Sunday brunch and those kinds of things. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.479 But I'm just talking about every day and to this day, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.960 my husband, Paul, who was born and raised in San Francisco, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.880 I was born and raised in Baltimore. To this day, 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.880 he likes to dine at eight, and I like to 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.760 eat at five, so early, like a peasant. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.839 Now well, actually I find that now in the restaurant, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.039 more and more people are eating earlier. We used to. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.320 Everybody used to make fun of Americans for wanting to 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.960 eat early, and now it harder for us to sell 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.039 the later tables, even young people. Everybody wants to eat early. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.920 But going back to this day of your father coming 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.080 back from work and you're all sitting down, would it 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.440 would there be? Would it be raucous? Would it be talk? 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.440 Would everybody be? What was it like at the table? 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.360 Would be a mixture, just depending what the mood was 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.280 at the time. But there were certain things that I 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.800 carried over and to my own children, and I'm still 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.720 that way. In a restaurant I had, we always had 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.280 to have a tablecloth, you know, I mean that was 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.640 a long time ago, so it doesn't it isn't so 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.200 unusual to think tablecloth then. Now it's almost a luxury. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.480 And so for my own children, we've never had a 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.360 meal without two things, some linens, whatever it might be, 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.320 could be place mat and salad and whatever else we 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.840 happen to have. And when they were growing up, the 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.720 five of them five and six years in one week 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:04.240 to the day a pack. I had different things I 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.240 would try. I would try when they came home from school. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.840 I'd say, let's have dessert now for three point thirty 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.520 four o'clock, we have dessert and then we'll have dinner later. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.760 Then I decided wouldn't be a good idea because they 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.880 came home they were hungry to have dinner at four o'clock. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.520 So that they would have their dinner and then we'd 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.920 have dessert later. We've tried all kinds of things to 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:31.440 satisfy their appetites. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.720 I loved that you said that your families were basically 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.920 a map of Italy of those very moving and so 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.400 tell me about the Italian influence on the food. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.720 Well, my father's mother was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.800 her parents, which would be my great grandparents, one was 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.559 born in Venice and one was born in Genoa, so 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.160 there was a lot of that influence in the in 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.280 the food, the northern and northern Italian. My mother's family 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.959 was from Campobasso, which is in the center of Italy, 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.640 but we lived in an Italian neighborhood, so there was 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.000 every food you can imagine in the neighborhood, and every 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.200 dialect that you could imagine in the neighborhood. But there 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.679 was one thing in common, the smell of very fresh 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.000 bread early in the morning, fresh Italian bread. To this day, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.480 it's one of the my happiest memories, the. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.840 Smell of fresh baked smells. Yeah, that's a good smell. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.960 But I think we always talk about Italy, you know, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.560 which was became a country very late. So you have 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:51.199 the very strong regional dishes, don't you. So in Venice 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.040 you have the polenta, and in southern Italy you have smartest, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.719 and then in Florence it's very in Tuscan it's very 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.000 bread oriented. And then everybody, I guess came to Baltimore 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.520 and there was there was everything in one area. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:12.040 Thing. You had the Tuscana, the Siciliana, the Marca John 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.319 or bruts As, the what do they call the Genovase 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:21.040 Gena Basically they were the other different names from the Ligorian. Yeah, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.640 the Venezzi that goes from Venice, by the name of 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.120 where they came from, because they were all sort of 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.199 like city states wheny of the northern Italians came early, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.040 you know, as I say, my father's mother. She was 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:42.480 born in Baltimore, probably like in the eighteen eighties or 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.640 something like that. Yeah, they came earlier than the others. 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.200 And then the Southern Italians came later. You think the 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.240 more later, the middle and later. And then San Francisco 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.319 is a very Italian American city. The Bank of America 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.480 was originally the Bank of Italy. I didn't know, yeah, 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:05.200 as a bank of Italy, and the influence there is 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.240 very Italian in terms of food. So it was a 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.000 comfortable move for me. And what did you so, what 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.320 would a meal be liked? Would they make? Did you 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.120 have a lot of spaghetti or pasta? 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.840 Well, we laugh because we used to say in those 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:24.560 days you had macaroni and gravy and ice cream, and 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.679 then it became pasta and sauce and gilato. 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.760 Did you have pasta every day regularly? 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.040 It may may not be actually every day, but on 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.600 the average of every day in one form or another. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.040 And we had, you know, my husband's family Italian. My 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.840 husband was born in Florence, and his mother was born 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.040 in Trieste, and his father was born he was born 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.679 in Nice and they moved to Triesta. The whole family 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.640 is very Italian. If we tell the story that one 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.400 of the cousins came to visit from Florence to London 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.040 and they put the food on the table and there 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.720 wasn't a pasta. Started to cry because it was just 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:03.920 a meal without pasta. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.160 It was not and that past it wasn't the meal, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.839 it was part of the meal. Yeah, yeah, it's a 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.520 PREMI when my friends this or that, where they'd have 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.800 a exchange student or something like that, it would be 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.720 we tell the story. But they were having lunch and 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:23.680 they said, well, you know who's having peanut butter and jelly, 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.640 who's having this or that? What would you like? And 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.320 the child said, well, how about a little veal with 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:32.520 lemon that it came from Tuscan exactly. 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.120 And so did you remember the pastas that you had? 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.000 Do you remember the food? Exact food? Oh? 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.360 I did all the standard stuff that you see now, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.800 of course, but I loved it. I always liked it 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.280 a little thicker and a little more all Dante, whether 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.920 it was that chuccini. Of course, rigatoni would be hard. 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:55.360 I preferred cheese ravi only polenta, And was very amused 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.800 because my big brother one day, a very fancy restaurant 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.720 opened up in Maryland, not in Bolt, but in sort 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.080 of eastern shore of Maryland. It was very acclaimed and 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.679 it's hard to get into and this or that. And 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.439 my brothers went to the restaurant and he came back. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.480 He said, Nancy, you'll never believe it. They had polenta, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.560 as if it was from a former I said, no, 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.800 tell me that's become she's out. 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.880 No exactly, that's what year would that have been? 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.400 Mean, Oh, my gosh, you remember probably about twenty five 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:33.680 years ago that became. It's not like they're having your grandma. 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.760 There's polenta they're having. Well, now, let me just say, 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.840 people say to me, what is your In fact, my 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.320 grandcha son said to me for our family tree project 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.920 in our class, we have to have a family favorite 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.800 family recipe that's been in our family for generations. And 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.160 what would you suggest? And I said, well, when I 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.360 would suggest, it's probably chocolate souffle or chocolate moves. And 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.480 he said, no, I mean a traditional family thing. My 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.600 mother wasn't. She wouldn't like me saying this. She wasn't 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.040 a big cooked. I mean she was capable of cooking, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.600 but she always had a cook and her mother didn't 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.280 cook because her husband cooked. He was a chef. He 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:17.720 would I would see him break the neck of an 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.240 eel or whatever it is, and to cook these fabulous 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.080 Your grandfather, my grandfather, and so my grandmother never cooked, 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.120 and I was like, you better talk to your father 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:28.760 about a family recipe. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.560 So the Italian influence so stayed and stayed. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.160 Oh, you think the deliciousness of it? 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:40.720 I think you know, it's funny that we say about 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.600 polenta because polenta and a lot of the dishes that 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.440 come from very traditional family are I hate the word, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.880 but what they call peasant food. I would never let 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.040 it be called peasant food. But rest of cooking, family cooking, 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.640 family dishes are now so as you say, so sophisticated. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.360 Well, my husband's mother made tripe all the time, and 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.040 that was pretty standard. She made Oh she made tripe 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:12.240 with polentae, tripe with or polenta with almost anything. So 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.600 when it became chic, we thought, oh, my gosh, Nana, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.560 it's really on the forefront. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:26.840 Did your parents speak Italian? 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:33.600 No, well, I don't know you. No, I didn't speak Italian. See, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.840 my father's mother was born in Baltimore, so it wasn't 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.240 the case of his, he didn't know Italian. My mother 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.600 she spoke some, but I don't know how good she was. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.280 And every time I would go to see my grandfather, 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.600 who was so beautiful and wonderful, and I loved him 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:52.920 so much, the chef he was going to teach me 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.360 how to speak Italian, and every time i'd go, he'd 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.640 get out a map and we'd start. These are different 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.080 die elects of Italian. So I could give you the 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.840 map of Italy and the different dialects, but I don't 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.640 know to speak Italian because we'd start with that map 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:09.160 every day. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.520 No, there are they're very you know. Again, My husband, 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.160 I was saying, was born in Florence, but when we 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.440 would go to Venice very often, he couldn't understand some 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.720 of the fishermen, you know, what they were speaking. It's 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.240 interesting because in these podcasts I talked to many people 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:29.320 who recall their grandparents cooking almost more than their parents cooking, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.800 and very often they come from families that emigrated from 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.000 another country. And I often think that perhaps the mother 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:41.800 was trying to adapt to the new environment where the 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.280 grandparents probably you know, that was their identity and took 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.800 it with them. But I haven't ended. You know the 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.360 fact that your grandfather was actually a professional chef. 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.680 My understanding of this is before I was aware of 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.680 what he was doing. He sold positive He had one 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:03.400 of those shops that's sold products from Italy pasta, dry 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.200 pasta and those kinds of things. So he was a foodie. 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.560 I mean, he was into food and a chef. And 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.560 my grandmother was treated like a queen. She never did 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:18.000 any housework or anything like that. And she didn't cook. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.560 That's I mean, I never knew how to cook one thing. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.320 In my mother's case, she had these seven children. Is 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:29.000 she were alive in another generation, who knows what she 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.560 would have been. She was a mom, She was a 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.640 political organizer for my father. She was a poet, she 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.600 was an inventor. She did all kinds of things. She 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:42.480 said to me once when I was a little girl, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.959 I know that the telephone can be used for more things. 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:47.840 I just have to figure it out. 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:50.399 And also you were her only daughter. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.280 We're very by the way in all of this, very 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.600 devoutly Catholic, YEA. So lots of times the ritual of 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:05.440 food surrounded Mass, either after or midnight or Sunday branch 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.760 or a lot of it revolved around going to church. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.000 Coming home, and each afterwards. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.320 As I always say, we were born in the family. 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:19.400 It was devoutly Catholic, fiercely patriotic, proud of our Italian 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.840 American heritage, and staunchly democratic. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.920 Yeah, staunchly democratic. Those principles came in very early. 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.439 They related to our Catholicism and our view of taking 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.120 care of other people and food. People came to our 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.520 door when people were poor. My brother Tommy, my older brother, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:39.639 he used to tell me that when he was a 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.160 little boy, people would come to the door and Mommy 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.600 would always be giving them food, giving them food, giving 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.959 them food. And even in her old age, she was 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.440 giving ice cream to children and they knew to come 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.600 to the door to get ice cream. So it was 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:53.480 all about nourishment one way or another. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.720 And when you left this incredibly close family and centered 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:02.919 around the table and food and church, when you left 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:08.600 this family and went to university to college, how did 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.680 you deal with food then? Do you remember? 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.399 Yeah, I went away. The only place that I was 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.240 allowed to go would be a woman's Catholic college. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:20.480 That would be where was that? What college? 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.679 It was called Trinity College in Washington, d c the 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:29.719 oldest Catholic women's college in America. It was a strict 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:34.720 academic school and it was within fifty miles of Baltimore, Maryland, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:42.760 and our college. It's not exactly a culinary July, but 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.560 we used to. We used to don't tell anybody who 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.520 told you this. We used to go at night. They 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.919 know now years later they know. But we used to go, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.399 like in the middle of the night, down to the 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.240 dining room and break into the freezer to get ice cream. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.439 Now they was locked, so you can only lift it 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.520 a little bit and put the scooper in there and 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:09.560 pull it out. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.119 We better not tell certain members of the house about 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:14.720 this exactly. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.560 It's hard to tell a flavor in the dark and 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.840 the dark and you could tell if it's chocolate or not. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.520 But peach, strawberry and the rest it kind of comes together. 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:30.080 And sometimes we would order pizza so that the guard. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.399 We'd say to the guard. Somebody would go talk to 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.000 the guard and said, I ordered pizza. I'm waiting here 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.000 for the pizza, while we would go down and steal 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.520 their ice cream, steal the ice cream. 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.720 And so your college days were spent stealing ice stealing 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:58.040 ice cream, basically, twenty minutes speaker Nancy Pelosi was never 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.840 going to be enough time to explore her movie and 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.480 memorable food story. So join us next week when we 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:12.240 will continue our conversation. River Cafe Table four Part two. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.120 To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:27.240 to shop Therivercafe dot co dot UK. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.560 River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:36.800 Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.280 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.